Another Baptism

Dear Family,

I am so excited for you guys! It sounds like a lot of good things are happening. That is really cool that our friends in Farmington are going to keep in touch with us. That’s funny that people in Alpine still remember that talk I gave. haha! I remember that took me years to write! But that is a really nice compliment from her. I am glad that someone actually listened to my talk.

Utah schools are awesome. I have been thinking about Luke lately because I know that adjusting to a new school is hard. It is a relief to know that he has a very good school and good friends. But has the move been really hard? Are you still unpacking? And does Dad have an office that he works in there or is it all from home?

I am sure that it is really hard to find non members to teach in Utah but a big service that you can do is help build up the members in the ward and I am sure there are a good amount of inactive members there too. We spent a lot of time this week helping to get menos activos back to the church and we have actually been pretty successful with this. One time when we went to go help this menos activo family we found there 30 year old daughter who is not a member. Her name is Elena and she is AWESOME. She wants to get baptized but she isn't married and her boyfriend doesn't want to get married even though they have been together for 16 years. The process to get married down here is pretty hard I guess too. So we are working with her and her boyfriend to try and change his mind. That is one of our biggest problems here though, no one is married! And if they don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend then they are on drugs! But there are a lot of people that really want to change their lives.

The other day Elder Walker and I went by to talk to German and Stephanie but they weren't there. We were in the middle of writing a note to leave in their door when the brother of German who lives next door came to talk to us. We asked him how he was doing and he said bad... really bad. He said that he got back into drugs the past few nights even though he has been off of them for 4 months. He was really sad and after a while he invited us into his house to say a prayer for him. We went to his house and sat down and shared a scripture with him about the atonement and he can change his life if he follows Christ. He started to tell us more about his life and he broke down and started crying in front of us. This guy is 28 years old and one of the toughest guys in Aeroparque. He has scars all over his body including a big one right on his chin where a guy tried to cut his throat but he ducked his chin. So this really tough dude breaks down in tears right in front of us. He wants to change so bad. He realizes how much time he has wasted doing bad things and he wants to fix it. The spirit was really strong and we said a prayer with him and afterwards he said he felt a lot better and he wants to keep getting the lessons from us. It was such a cool experience and a testimony builder that wickedness never was happiness. It is going to be tough for him though. He has a lot of things that he needs to change but if he puts his Faith in Jesus Christ then we know he can change his life completely.

So right after this talk we had with him we walked down the street and German’s other brother stopped us and wanted to talk with us too. We went into his house and he said that he wants to quit smoking. He has been smoking since he was 8 years old and he has been drinking since he was 11. That is ridiculous. All of these guys had a horrible father and their mom didn't do much to help but they have learned how to be really good guys though. I mean they do a lot of bad things like drugs but it’s because they never knew better. Now they all want to change. They are all filled with so much love too. The brother that wants to quit smoking is such a nice guy. He is always working really hard to make sure his adopted son is comfortable and he is just a nice guy all around. Anyway he wants to get baptized and he wants to quit smoking but we have a lot to work on with him. So hopefully all of Germans brothers will join the church! I think this all started because they see the difference the church has made in German’s life. Such a great experience though.

So last night I was hungry so I decided to try and make something out of nothing. I ended up making the best apple cinnamon scones! I was really proud of myself. I even made some cinnamon butter to put on them... Cinnamon is really cheap here haha! But could you send me the recipe to make your scones cause obviously yours are better. Are they tough to make? 

But thanks for everything you have taught me! You taught me how to cook and wash dishes.... everything! The only problem is that our washer is broken and there isn't time to wash our clothes by hand so...... I haven't washed my clothes in about a month haha! But the guy is coming to fix it finally today i think. 

I love all of you so much, Oh tell Natalie happy late birthday for me and give her a hug and some chocolate!

Love,

Elder Lacey

                     German and Stephanie were baptized.  It was perfect! I baptized Stephanie.

Changes

August 19, 2013

Dear Family,

Wow! What a crazy week for you guys! I am so excited about Grandma and Grandpas mission call. All four of my Grandparents are always looking for oppurtunitys to serve. They are really good examples to all of us. But that is so weird that someone shot at the football team. That is really scary. I hope that they catch the guy who did it.

It is a sad day for Farmington. The Lacey's are finally leaving. I am sure that it was really hard to say goodbye to all of our really good friends that we have made there. There are some really good people that live there. I am really glad that they have such a good bishopric coming in though. Farmington will be in good hands. I hope everything goes well up in Alpine and that you all will find a ton of friends up there too.

So, German and Stephanie didn't get baptized this week. He recently got a better job but the problem is that he is always dead tired because he works so much. So it has been hard to find a time to meet with him. We are pretty sure they will get baptized this week though. Recently we have found some really good new investigators though so hopefully we can help some more people obtain happiness. 

This past week we had cambios! Elder Ve'e and Elder Pyper left which was sad but we got Elder Ha from Korea and a new Oro from Peru. His name is Elder Huara or something like that. I can't remember how to spell it. But they are both really cool guys. Right now I am writing you guys from the offices! We are in the same zone as them so this morning we woke up at 4 so that we could come and play basketball against the APs and the secretarys. We are pretty good friends with them so we get the hookups haha!

But I got the Beef Jerky! Thank you so much. I also got a letter from Grandpa Jack and a letter From Olivia and Ali. Thank them for sending those to me. Letters always give me a smile! Give hugs to all the little nieces and nephews for me. I miss them all a ton! 

I can't believe that I am already done with my first change. Time is flying by. This change me and Elder Walker are going to really hit Spanish hard this change. I know enough that I can teach all the lessons and stuff like that but it is hard because I can't really express myself fully. In English I feel like I can get people excited about things and motivate them to do stuff but its harder to do stuff like that in Spanish. 

I don't know if I can send you pictures today. I will try but for my camera I usually need a port that takes SD cards and this one doesn't have one :( I will go try though.

Send my love to everyone. I wish you the best with everything. I wish I was there to help you guys move! 

Love,

Elder Lacey 

Photos from Uruguay

 The House Elder Lacey Built.

 With the Conti Family

 Elder Waker and Lacey

Good, Better, Best

Aloha!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! You guys are the best parents in the whole world! The 3 other missionaries in our house and I decided to go eat at McDonalds to celebrate your anniversary. Its funny because McDonalds is really high class here, but it was really good. 

Alright lets get to the good stuff.

I am now a true missionary!!! There are a few qualifications you need to become a true missionary and on Saturday I accomplished the hardest one.... I got bit by a dog! Haha! Elder Walker and I had just got out of a lesson and we were talking about how it went. It was pitch black so I couldn't see a thing. I suddenly just felt a sting on my calf and then before I could kick the dog in the head it was half way down the street. It was some sort of ninja dog. It snuck up on me, bit me, and then took off. The good thing is that it was a pretty weak bite. I thought it got me worse than it did but it barely left a mark and it didn't break skin so I'm all good. It was a pretty weak dog.

I received the package with candy in it! Thank you so much! It has been treating me really well. I don't know why it took so long to get here though. I also got a letter from Sam and one from Amy. They were from awhile back though. But tell them thanks for me. It is really good to hear from everybody. I'll be writing everyone soon! I also think I got some more letters today but I haven't been able to read them. I am only able to read letters on P day so sometimes I forget to read them before I come here to write emails. But thanks you everyone for writing me! I love it. But I think DearElder takes a really long time to get here just so everyone knows. Which is fine, but if you want a letter to get here faster the regular way is faster... or an email is pretty fast too. I also got the recipes! Thank you so much! I love cooking. I have started making French Toast every morning and I'm not going to lie... It is some dang good French Toast.

Here is a good, better, best story. One night at around 7:30 Elder Walker and I didn't have anymore set charlas (discussions) for the rest of the night so we decided to go to the Salvetti’s house. The Salvetti Family is awesome! They are members and they always feed us and they are really funny. We needed to talk with them about something for German and Stephanies wedding coming up. We pretty much knew that if we went there they were going to give us dinner and hot chocolate while we talked about whatever we needed to talk about. We would be doing what we needed to but it would probably take more time than it needed to. So while we were walking to the Salvettis Elder Walker said let’s go and see if we can talk with one of our new investigators and then after that we will go talk to the Salvettis. So we went and had a really good short lesson with this lady and then after that we started heading to the Salvettis again. But again, we decided that we could be doing something better so we stopped where there was some light and looked at our planners. There wasn't really anyone we could visit at that time of night. We had a list of names of people that were potential futures so I picked a name off of that list. But we didn't really know where she lived and it is difficult to find people’s houses in the dark so Elder Walker said to pick a different name and I agreed. So we stood there for another minute and then I said I have no idea who we should go visit......wait, actually I do. We are going to visit the first person that I chose. I felt that it was right.  We new the Manzana (or the block) this lady lived on and it was on the other side of Aeroparque. We walked over there and could not find it at all. So we started walking back to our house when Elder Walker decided to turn around and walk a different route back to home. While we were walking I had a chain of thoughts that lead to me to remember this one lady that we talked to a couple weeks ago. I looked up and the lady I was thinking about lived right where we were walking toward. So we decided to go talk to her and her family. We talked to her husband and he was really interested and excepted our invitation to find out if these things are true and then if they are true, be baptized. The whole chain of events that lead up to us finding these people was miraculous. There is no way that it was coincidence. And it all started with us choosing to do the best we could do. Going to the Salvettis was good but doing a little bit more work was better, and then not going to the Salvettis turned out to be the best thing we could do at that time. When we were walking home Elder Walker and I just looked at each other and said, “Yep, the Church is true!”

Kind of a long story but I thought it was pretty neat. But this week has been really good. Sunday was frustrating because I really thought we were going to have 9 investigators in church this week but only 3 showed up. I get disappointed every Sunday! Haha! But its all good. We will get them all to come eventually.

Did the Conti family email you pictures yet? They are such an awesome family! And we had lunch with them yesterday and they said they would send some pictures of us all to you guys! I thought that was really nice of them. They are awesome.

Keep me informed of everything that is happening. I am going to try and write everyone soon but if I can't get to it today make sure everyone knows that I love them! Make sure all the nieces and nephews remember my name! 

I love you!

Elder Lacey